FLEET OF FASTER BUSES PROPOSED FOR DOWNTOWN ALONG BROADWAY

touted as a trolley on wheels — along Broadway in downtown San Diego by 2014 has ignited a debate about the future of the busy central corridor.

Planners say a fleet of faster buses would improve public transit ridership and traffic flow in the area, but some business owners worry the new routes may hurt the traffic, the ambience and the livelihoods on Broadway.

The $30 million project is part of a larger rapid transit system that the San Diego Association of Governments is implementing over the next few years, consisting of three lines that will connect Escondido, the Otay Mesa border crossing and San Diego State University to downtown via freeways and major streets.

All three lines would converge at the City College trolley station, then proceed down Broadway. The project is being funded through the local TransNet half-cent sales tax for transportation.

SANDAG estimated that roughly two dozen to four dozen double-length buses per hour could stop along Broadway. Forty-nine would stop at the peak hour during the morning and evening commute. Thirty-one would stop at midday.

A SANDAG official said a few less buses will stop along Broadway than do now because some of the existing bus traffic would be routed to nearby streets. He said the new bus service would run down Broadway because the street is “the spine” of downtown and the area’s primary east-west route.

“It’s going to benefit people working and living in downtown,” principal planner Dave Schumacher said. “This is an economic driver. This is going to make transit a lot more convenient for workers, for people attending a ballgame and for people coming to listen to music on a Friday night.”

Howard Greenberg, president of Trilogy Real Estate Management, which manages the Granger Building on the corner of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, said businesses have adjusted to many changes along the street, and would again.

He said a rapid bus stop — with wider sidewalks, new paving and curbs, and improved lighting, landscaping and security — would improve upon the one now in front of his building.

Yet the Little Italy Association of San Diego, a nonprofit community group, wrote a letter to Mayor Jerry Sanders and other civic leaders on March 20 decrying “the near certain destruction of the fabric of our downtown.”

And co-owner Judi Winslow fears for The Sofia Hotel, which has been in her family since 1986. One of four new bus stops to be built on or near Broadway would be constructed in front of her 211-room, 85-year-old establishment.

“It was built at a time when businesses interacted with their customers right on the sidewalk, and that’s what we do,” she said. “There aren’t many buildings that have that type of architecture and that experience for their guests and for their passers-by anymore. It will not feel the same.”

Winslow is worried that the new bus station could increase noise, crime and pollution near her boutique hotel and restaurant — and decrease business.

She suggested placing the new bus stop a block west in front of the San Diego Superior Court building, which is scheduled to be replaced by a new courthouse a block away in 2016.

SANDAG’s transportation committee is poised to discuss the plan April 20.